A significant advancement in spatial computing in an inconvenient package is the Vision Pro.
You’ve probably read a lot by now regarding Apple’s Vision Pro mixed-reality headset—which the corporation is promoting as the computer of the future. Numerous reviews, unboxings, teardowns, and even claims of front screen damage have been made. I highly recommend reading my colleague Lauren Goode’s fantastic article about wearing a headset while watching movies and sobbing.
Almost a month has passed since I first played with the Apple Vision Pro, exploring a variety of features including light gaming and late-night TV binges in bed. To assess the quality of the micro-OLED screens in Apple’s headset, I even saw a 70-mm showing of 2001: A Space Odyssey in a cinema and contrasted it with the experience that I had with the Vision Pro. While the visuals are stunning, Apple’s technological prowess is unable to replicate the physical effects of seeing the film in a real theater; the tension created by other patrons and the loud sound system far outweigh any anxiety you may have from your Kubrickian dread.
Working has been my main usage for the Vision Pro. I’m primarily interested in the spatial computing features of this device. I mean, if I’m going to work out of a coffee shop, that’s the kind of man that packs a portable monitor. I adore having extra screens! What particularly thrilled me was the thought of having a single device that could add numerous virtual screens wherever I was and recreate my at-home workstation.
However, the other day, after taking what seemed like twice as long as I usually would to do a work, I removed the headset and uttered the words “I can’t do this” when Safari suddenly crashed and wouldn’t let me drag the virtual browser windows back to where they had been.
As I’ve been thinking about the Vision Pro a lot these past several weeks, I also can’t stop thinking about this Steve Jobs quote: “You have to start with the customer experience and work backward to the technology.” It is not possible to begin with the technology and try to choose where you would attempt to market it.
Tunnel Vision
This past week’s travel to Barcelona for the Mobile World Congress provided an ideal opportunity to test the Vision Pro’s functionality for work. I put Apple’s Magic Keyboard and Magic Trackpad on the tray table and plucked up the nerve to wear the headset in public (I’m glad no one was sitting next to me on the plane). I’m not sure why Apple didn’t take the time to create a special keyboard and mouse set for the Vision Pro that didn’t also require Lightning charging.
During the first five minutes in the air, I became really frustrated. When traveling in a plane (or even a train), the Vision Pro must be in Travel Mode. If it is not, the sensors become confused and it is unable to determine where to position virtual apps due to the rapid speed at which you are going. The headset should recognize when you’re flying automatically and remind you to turn it on, but mine didn’t. It turned into a race to see how quickly I could navigate the UI to reach the Control Center and activate it before everything vanished and I received the alert that said “tracking failed.” I gave it approximately ten tries until I succeeded.
I was ready with Travel Mode activated. After purchasing in-flight Wi-Fi, I linked the Vision Pro. I didn’t have to worry about the headset’s meager two-hour run time because I put the battery pack into the under-seat socket for constant power. Because I didn’t want to ignore the cabin staff in case they came around, I didn’t switch on a “Environment” to block out the outside world. I had one Safari browser open and using a lot of tabs in the Vision Pro, and I had another one off to the left that I used for reference and research. I could monitor business and personal conversations with Slack and Telegram on the right.
I’m a 6’4″ guy with broad shoulders, and writing on a laptop in an aircraft seat is usually next to impossible for me. It’s simply too small. I was using the Vision Pro to type a tale that was almost two thousand words long.
The issue? It wasn’t good that all of my virtual apps had a small jitter to them—almost if they were shaking in place. If you read it sequentially, it kind of feels like lab notes you’d find in a video game right before the person who wrote it was slain by some scientific invention. I had the Apple Notes app open on the side so I could add any random ideas I had about my Vision Pro experience.
